Fight Night(15)

Grandma’s friends came to pick her up and they all hugged and laughed at the door and gave me a bag of buns. They spoke their secret language with each other. They were in cahoots. Grandma winked at me as if to say relax, don’t worry, everything is ridiculous!

When she was gone I felt frozen, like a bug in amber, and I didn’t know what to do.

I sat on the stairs and thought. I wrote the word freewheelin’ on my jeans in two parts on the spaces above my knees. Free was bigger than wheelin’. I should have measured it out. Grandma says to keep everything freewheelin’. But how?

Then Mom came bursting through the door. Oh no, scorched earth. But she was happy! She was smiling and stomping her feet. She acted as though being alive was obvious. Maybe she wasn’t gonna kill herself after all! She asked me what I was doing. Just sitting here on the stairs? she asked. And writing and thinking, I said. Let’s go, she said. She pulled me up off the stairs. She hugged me. She asked me if I’d been crying. Obviously not! I said. Have you? She laughed and then whoosh! She had me by the hand. We were out the door. Critical interventions! she shouted. I looked around to see if anyone had heard her. The smoking guy next door smiled. He started singing the song he always sings, about not wanting to go to rehab. Me and Mom walked and walked. We passed the cop parked on the Walnut Street side. I told her not to do anything or say anything. She said no, no, no, I won’t, but believe it or not she did do something, I don’t know what, but the cop smiled and nodded like okay, crazy mother lady. Mom could write her own book about taking care of children if all you have to do is make them frustrated so they get used to reality. Then we walked through the park, past the dogs in the off-leash pit, and then around past the outdoor market where we bought cookies and then down to the lake where we bought hot dogs and then back past the roti place which was packed and all the way downtown where we bought Nutella crepes and she did most of the talking. She wanted to tell me things about herself. She wanted me to know she wasn’t going to kill herself. Did Grandma tell you to tell me that? I asked her. Not exactly, she said. She told me you were worried about it. Well, are you? I asked her. Going to kill myself? she said. I didn’t nod or say anything. I didn’t want to talk about it. I just wanted her to say no. No! she said. Never. Well, maybe when I’m old and in horrific pain with no end in sight, she said. You mean like Grandma? Now I was worried again! Grandma will kill herself! No! said Mom. Not like Grandma. She’s going the assisted dying route, I said. With all her friends. Listen, said Mom. People die. I sighed and slumped over. I know that! I said. I already know that!

Mom talked about fighting. She said if she wasn’t fighting she was dying. And that she has to fight to feel alive and to balance things out. So she keeps fighting. She said we’re all fighters, our whole family. Even the dead ones. They fought the hardest. She said she sometimes felt haunted by Grandpa and Auntie Momo. She thought about their last minutes and seconds and about what they were thinking and then about their bodies being in pieces and what if they didn’t die right away. The worst thing is that they were alone. Auntie Momo had wanted Mom to write her letters but Mom didn’t. She just sent e-mails. Why didn’t she write letters? That’s another one of her fights. She said she replaces those images in her head with pictures of me and Gord, even though Gord doesn’t exist yet. She said what makes a tragedy bearable and unbearable is the same thing—which is that life goes on. She told me she says things to herself like, my suffering is the world’s suffering. My joy is the world’s joy. She just went on and on. She said part of fighting is saying things to yourself. While she walked and talked she tilted her head way over to one side and counted to thirty and then moved it way over to the other side and counted to thirty. She said she was trying to create space between her vertebrae.

We sat on a bench in the park and watched two men play tennis. Mom said she hated this new thing called mini-tennis. It’s where the people playing tennis warm up by hitting the ball back and forth in the small area first and then gradually move back so that they’re using the full court. Mom just hates that so much. It looks bad, she said. It’s ridiculous. It’s just so timid! If you’re going to play a game of tennis then play it properly and warm up properly with the full court. Mom used to play tennis all the time with Auntie Momo. That’s the way to play tennis, she said. The way we did it.

Mom said sometimes she and Auntie Momo played doubles with two guys from Lundar. They were the same age as Auntie Momo. Eighteen. Mom was twelve. One day one of the guys came to the tennis court to say they couldn’t play doubles because his doubles partner was in jail. He had been stopped for speeding on the number six highway on the way to Eriksdale. He had a lot of stress in his life. I guess he freaked out, said Mom. He’d grabbed the Mountie’s baton and hit him over the head. Then he’d stolen the Mountie’s gun. Then he’d stolen the Mountie’s unmarked vehicle. And then he took off to see his mom. Hmmm, I said. Mom said yeah. She was quiet. Then she said but I get it, I get it. Eventually the guy got out of jail, said Mom, and they played doubles again for a while until they all … She moved her hands around. Scattered, she said. I asked if they were still friends and Mom said yeah, except that she was pretty sure he’d died. Then how can you be friends! I said. She said you can be friends with dead people. Swiv, she said, we need to embrace our humanity.

Go ahead! I said. (Mom loves to hate things or embrace things.) I don’t even know what you mean. Mom was going to explain things to me but fate intervened and I was saved from having to embrace anything.